Transgender: Time To Change

March 19, 2011

“This will be an extremely stimulating meeting exploring the most recent academic, clinical and contemporary thinking on transgender issues, for all people interested in this field.

SPEAKERS:

Domenico Di Ceglie M.D. Dip.Psychiat (It), FRCPysch

Domenico Di Ceglie is Director of Training Development and Research, Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust, London and Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London.

He has a longstanding interest in adolescence and has worked in adolescent in-patient units and has been widely involved in consultative work to organisations and to professional networks. He has been Organising Tutor of an MA course accredited by the University of East London in Adolescent Mental Health for professionals.

In 1989 he founded a specialist service for children, adolescents and their families facing gender identity issues at St. George’s Hospital, London, now based at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust. He was the service Director until March 2009. The GIDS provides a multi-disciplinary service countrywide, consultation, training and research and has been nationally designated and funded by the National Specialised Commissioning Group, UK. He has developed models of care and treatment for children and adolescents with gender identity disorder and has been involved in research projects. He has published papers about his work and edited a book “A Stranger in My Own Body – Atypical Gender Identity Development and Mental Health” (Karnac Books, London). He was highly commended in the Health & Social Care Awards, 2004. He gives frequent lectures in the UK and abroad and has undertaken extensive research in the area of Gender Identity

Julie Bindel, Journalist

Julie Bindel has been involved in campaigning to end violence against women and children for 30 years. She is the co-editor of The Map of My Life: The Story of Emma Humphreys, Astraia Press, 2003, and a number of chapters and papers on topics such as domestic violence and homicide, rape, stalking and harassment, and trafficking and prostitution. She currently divides her time between research and journalism. In 2010 Julie was named by the Independent on Sunday as one of the 100 most influential people from the lesbian and gay community in the UK.

Christina Richards is Senior Specialist Psychology Associate at the WLMHT Gender Identity Clinic (Charing Cross) where she practices individual and group psychotherapy as well as psychological assessment. She is also a part time postgraduate lecturer on sexuality and mental health. She has published several chapters and papers and, along with Dr Penny Lenihan at the WLMHT GIC and Dr Meg Barker at the Open University, will have her first book: Sexuality and gender for counsellors, psychologists and health professionals: A practical guide published by Sage in 2012

James Barrett, Lead Clinician, Gender Identity Clinic

James Barrett is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Senior Lecturer and is the Lead Clinician at the West London Mental Health Gender Identity Clinic (Charing Cross). Over the last 25 years working in this field he has assessed and treated about six thousand patients. He is the Editor of and main psychiatric contributor to: Transsexual and Other Disorders of Gender Identity: A Practical Guide to Management, which is the standard text in the field. He is also a General Medical Council Assessor and Supervisor, a College Fellow and Examiner, a keen cyclist and the holder of a British Cheese Society Diploma.

Az Hakeem, Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist

Az Hakeem has run a specialist psychotherapy service for patients with transgender and other gender identity disorders from the Portman Clinic for over a decade. The service is the only one of its kind in the UK’s NHS and covers a national catchment area. Patients are seen for assessment and psychotherapy either individual or group of a modified analytic model specifically tailored for gender identity patients on which he has published numerous papers over recent years.

Az Hakeem is also the Head of The Dartmouth Park Unit, a specialist Mentalization Based Personality Disorder Service which he was instrumental in setting up for Camden & Islington NHS Foundation Trust five years ago. He is a Tutor and external advisor for the College and also delivers teaching to medical undergraduates at University College London. Az Hakeem also works as a psychiatrist for the media and has been involved in a number of television programmes both on and off screen.”

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This upcoming conference of gay and lesbian psychiatrists on the topic of treatment modalities for transgender clients has the trans-jacktivist communities up in arms.

Dominic Di Ceglie has long stated how problematic current transgenderist “treatments” of drugs and surgery are for the youth population he treats, a full 25% of whom rapidly drop the whole transgender philosophy upon entering talk therapy. Not to mention the overwhelming majority of gender role non-conforming children (98%) turn out to be homosexual or to a lesser degree hetero non-trans adults.

Az Hakeem is the author of “Transsexualism: A case of The Emperor’s New Clothes?”, “Changing Sex or Changing Minds: Specialist Psychotherapy and Transsexuality”, and “Deconstructing Gender in Trans-Gender Identities” as well as other psychiatric papers and remains one of the only practitioners of psychiatric treatment available to transgender patients in the UK which integrates analysis of cultural gender norms.

Predictably, pro-medical/surgical treatment trans-jactivists, who have long fought to prevent any further scientific study of, or alternative treatment for transgenderism are responding with the usual tactics of abuse and harassment. Notably, M2Ts have singled out feminist lesbian journalist Julie Bindel for the most egregious abuse.

Has started an online campaign called “Julie Bindel’s Genitals” on Facebook and WordPress:

Paris Lees' campaign

Like many tran activists Mr. Lees has confused a diagram of the female reproductive system with “genitals”. This is common among a male population that believes cosmetic surgery that transforms their penis into a rough visual approximation of exterior female genitalia “makes them women”. Anti-feminist activist Mr. Lees, who claims on his YouTube page that he is employed by the Millivres Prowler Group , has not included any of the male conference participants in his campaign nor their genitals or reproductive systems. Mr Lees main objection to Bindel seems to be her feminist analysis, as he states:

“And furthermore, I am a rad fem. I am reclaiming the term. There is nothing radical about Bindel’s rather stale and circular brand of feminism. She and various other bigoted cis ‘thinkers’ have suspected for quite some time that trans women who identify as feminists are merely trying to enter women’s ideological space. So let’s do it.

Henceforth, ‘rad fem’ will refer to a trans person who believes that the personal is political, that biology does not equal destiny, that human beings deserve bodily autonomy and that it is morally objectionable to place meanings and judgments onto other people’s gendered bodies. It means a belief in equality and judging people on their words and actions – and not their appearance. In short, it will now mean everything that the words ‘Julie Bindel’ do not.

Enjoy Julie Bindel’s genitals.”

"Transwomen" raped by own genitals

Seems this upcoming conference (or at least Julie Bindel’s invite to speak) has the anti-organic treatment option crowd up to their usual tricks. This is yet another split among the increasingly failing transgender political coalition, as the minority of trans who agree with increased treatment options get tossed yet again under the bus by pro-surgical anti-feminist transgenders.

Dominic Di Ceglie has long stated how problematic current transgenderist “treatments” of drugs and surgery are for the youth population he treats, a full 25% of whom rapidly drop the whole transgender philosophy upon entering talk therapy. Not to mention the overwhelming majority of gender role non-conforming children (98%) turn out to be homosexual or to a lesser degree hetero non-trans adults.

Yes, the trans thing is very anti-lesbian/gay, and it always perplexed me as to why the LGB community added them to the alphabet.

Poor Julie, she really does get attacked by the loonsquad.

Mr Paris Lees can go fuck himself if he thinks he will try and appropriate radical feminism. It’s not up for grabs or redefinition by menz of any stripe.

Gallus I don’t know how to respond to this. As a parent, an aunt, a radical feminist who has friends with girl children, I am truly frightened. These men are mentally ill, Silence of the Lambs variety stark raving nuts, and terrifyingly dangerous. I’m going right over to send a note of support to Julie. What courage.

There is a lot of underlying homophobia going on regarding transgender issues. Certainly in Iran, the country that performs the most surgeries, homosexuality is illegal and can carry the death penalty. That’s a whole lot of homophobic motivation right there.

I feel bad for all these kids. I think in a perfect world we wouldn’t be concerned about their gender identity issues, we’d be asking why are these kids not able to just be kids? I mean, why is gender so rigidly important and why have we taught them that having an “identity” is something they must be concerned about? We ourselves as adults can’t even clearly define masculine and feminine.

I agree- the GID diagnosis for kids is downright criminal. The vast majority of “gender non conforming” kids turn out to be gay. Now they’re pathologizing them tranz- and a lifetime of hormones and surgery to “correct” them. It’s like fucking Iran.

wow, I wish I was still living in England… though come to think of it, I have been thinking it would be nice to go back.

As a psychotherapist, I find it alarming that just identifying alternative therapies for GID meets with this kind of resistance. Psychological disorders are currently enigmatic because not only are there physical components but also emotional and cognitive and spiritual components to these things. From a professional ethics standpoint, exploring all treatment options is necessary to provide psychotherapy that is within the best interest of the client. I can’t believe (well, maybe I can, unfortunately) what little regard the trans community has for the well-being of folks who are questioning their gender experience, let alone for the respect and dignity that the experts and professionals who DO have regard for those folks and are genuinely trying to seek out research-based ways to identify the best way of treating GID.

It is incredible how the trans activists have enforced a pro-drug pro-surgery treatment and shouted down any alternate treatment or research in favor of the most invasive measures imaginable. With no analysis whatsoever of cultural gender norms. So many trans go along with the trans treatment narrative only to find themselves mutilated and STILL dysphoric and obsessive. Only to be shouted down yet again by their trans activist peers.

“Anti-feminist activist Mr. Lees, who claims on his YouTube page that he is employed by the Millivres Prowler Group , has not included any of the male conference participants in his campaign nor their genitals or reproductive systems.”

So true. Someone was pointing out a site to me that purposed to “call out” so-called transphobic sites, but when I looked, it was all female and feminist sites that questioned the politics of “male and female brains in the wrong body”. None of them were sites from males or religious people, or those who actually have any power to oppress males who want to play female.

Re: Fab Libber’s comment about the LGBT acronym- I was thinking recently about how the T originally got added to the LGBT alphabet. For most of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, the phrase was “lesbian and gay”. The lesbian community and the gay male community were mainly two separate communities aside from some political activities, pride events, MCC church, and the like. In the 90’s the phrase became “lesbian, gay and bisexual”. Also in the 90’s, the word transgender was being used to refer to gender bending, not necessarily transsexualism. In the same timeframe there was a big explosion of “queer theory”. I believe the usage of LGBT came about around that time, and then the rest of the alphabet soup was added. So the acronym really hasn’t been around very long, and it’s only become common usage in the last several years. I think “Pride” festivals had a lot to do with increased usage of the acronym. Some of it is probably an attempt at social or political “unity”. Personally, I’d like to see it go away.

Transgender is inherently homophobic. Gays and Lesbians respect diversity. Transgender, not so much. Transgender is inherently conservative and anti-feminist. No wonder so many gays and lesbians disagree with the transgender platform.

In the 1970s, lesbians fought hard to get “lesbian” into the “San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Pride parade.” In the early to mid-80s, bi was added, and quickly, trans.

It was in 1986 that the entire dais of speakers at SF Pride, with their carefully coordinated speeches, hammered away at why lesbians should help out gays with their AIDS problem: financially, politically, and volunteer-wise. Lesbians were told gays were our “brothers,” and that they would help us if we had such a health crisis or political problem (to which lesbians roared with laughter.)

They asked us to “set aside, at least temporarily, what divides us, to help gays fight AIDS.” Meaning, lesbians were to set aside our feminist objections to gay sexism in behavior and organizations. Gay organizations’ long-time political focus was/is to be accepted and to assimilate into patriarchal institutions (the business world, motherhood, marriage, and the military): the very same institutions lesbian feminists at the time were working to dismantle, or simply evacuate from, to allow those institutions to crash and burn, or whatever, without us.

What gays (and their obedient lesbian allies) were really asking of lesbians was to set aside our feminism and ignore gay sexism. They were accusing feminism of being “divisive,” when in fact, it was gays’ sexism that had always been divisive.

That is when the “LGBT” was formed: as a coalition to help gays with their AIDS problem, by bullying and blaming lesbian feminists for our feminism “keeping us away from” supporting them and their problem.

Around that time, lesbians’ feminism was being blamed for literally being responsible for killing gays with AIDS, by not wanting to work with/for them and all their sexism.

So the LGBT was started as a pro-gay initiative to silence and bash lesbian feminism into the ground, in order to colonize lesbians to do gays’ AIDS work. From there, after succeeding in demonizing lesbian feminism as “divisive” and “deadly to gays,” LGBT lesbians had been thoroughly alienated away from their own feminist needs as women, to be deployable to work on other gay assimiliationist goals. After the coalition made progress on AIDS, gays conveniently didn’t even need to make good on their request that we “temporarily” drop our feminist grievances. Nope, most former lesbian feminists were already well colonized against feminism.

It’s bizarre how, during that time of the mid-80s to the mid-90s, so many former lesbian feminists were converted into glassy-eyed cult members who are gay-centered, gay-obedient, gay-worshipping rabid anti-feminists, desperate to anticipate and work for gays’ political agendas.

I really think it was all the blaming of lesbians, for their feminism, for gays dying of AIDS that did it. They can’t afford to be feminist, because it got into their psyches that feminism is cruelty to gays.

It’s truly bizarre. I have a hard time relating to almost any lesbians now, because almost all seem like such Stepford Wives to gays’ politics. I tend to have more in common with straight feminists than with lesbians due to their lack of feminism and loyalty to womyn’s politics.

I find people like Paris Lees repulsive and hateful because they are so obviously invested in living their gender fetishism that they confuse themselves with all others of their kind and are willing to sacrifice everyone who stands in their way (inlcuding their own) to get the distorted vision of “woman” they have been taught is authentically female.

Paris Lees is a 23 year old fag who is totally and completely self-absorbed. No, he doesn’t give a shit about people with GID and advocating for varied treatment options. He certainly doesn’t give a shit about women and knows nothing about them. I watched his YouTube while doing research and there was not a single word about anything but his hair, clothing, eyebrows, etc. It was like the tranny version of pro-ana.

I suppose Paris didn’t get the memo that in order to reclaim a word, it has to be used as a pejorative against you. No m2ts have ever been called a “radical feminist” to refer to their gender issues. Therefore, it’s not his to “reclaim.”

Now, if he wants to reclaim the words he/she, shemale, it, tranny, or gender bender, that’s another story. I don’t see that happening, though, because he’s so used to stealing from women he doesn’t know where to stop.

His “appropriation” analogy is sick. It’s a blatant display of his deep down sense of owning the female anatomy as a male. Also, calling radical feminists “misandrists” is a total MRA move, and by proxy acknowledges their own maleness. Somehow, “duh” just doesn’t cut it with these assholes.

You have to look at this sick blog! It’s full of guys who are thinking that wearing tampons is suuuuper girlie (seriously). These guys have NO idea about being a woman. They life in their own bizarre girlie world. It’s just sad and I’m disgusted.

Thanks BB. Your post helped me get over my horror and see this for what it was. It does make one smile to see the complete dissociation from reality. This vid was all about the make-up and photo-shopping.

I’m also bristling about their definition of rape. Rape also includes forced contact with mouth and anus, too. The perp could use a finger or an object, too. A man could rape a woman by putting a dildo in her mouth. Just because there is no forced contact with actual genitals does not mean it’s not sexual assault.

The level of contempt they display for us, our organs, and rewriting the definition of rape to redirect focus on them is disturbing. To say the least.

Thanks for such an interesting post, would love to know what they talked about during the conference. Anyway, the most offensive part for me was reading this by Mr. Lee:

“So what is rape? Bluntly, it’s having a dick shoved in you when you really would rather it wasn’t. By force, no choice, no ability to refuse. And that’s what being a transwoman is. Having a penis stuck to me, which Will Not Go Away. Transwomen are raped by our own bodies.”

No, rape is when ANOTHER PERSON does something sexual to you without your consent. Nature is not a rapist, no matter how confused that guy is. My hair is not capable of rape, my boobs can’t rape me, even my FAT ASS isn’t raping me. This dude is conflating “dissatisfaction with a less-than-perfect body part” with rape.

He either believes that real women consent to being raped by our less than perfect body parts, and/or that real women always love our less than perfect body parts. The reason he has no clue how normal women think is because HE’S BATSHITINSANE. He’s just like every other guy who conflates anything unpleasant in his life to rape.

I’m sure he’s stressed when other people refuse to humor his delusions, but that’s not rape, it’s the exact opposite of rape. We might as well say that they’re raping real women whenever they try to force us to play along with their fantasies — but oh wait that would be “transphobic”!

Hey – btw i was ‘nutter’ as well… But yes; you’ll see lots of people on paris’ blog telling me off for using the ‘r’ word – but what i was specifically referencing was the ‘transsexuals rape womens’ bodies’ trope. So i was deliberately using the same terminology to describe my own body issues. As i responded later to someone else:

“I’m talking there of my own experience, of the sense of waking up in the night going ‘aagh, get it off me!’. And using rape as a metaphor for how i feel about that as a riposte to people who specifically say i’m raping them by existing. ”

And, incidentally, i have been sexually assaulted, by a woman, during my teens, as part of my parents’ attempts to turn me into a ‘real man’, so yes, i may well be traumatised and delusional about whats in my trousers, but to be honest, who does it harm if the ‘cure’ for my delusion is to transition? You’re right, i don’t have any idea how a ‘normal woman’ thinks, any more than i have any idea how a ‘normal man’ thinks. Or anyone thinks, other than me. How can i?

But to be honest, you’re entitled to your opinion, but the bottom line is, i don’t actually care what you think, it doesn’t affect me other than giving me an interesting (cos other people’s opinions are always interesting even if you don’t agree) read…

“The transsexuals of the world are rolling their eyes at you and this pathetic attempt at an insult on Ms Lees.”

How do they DO that ??? Roll their eyes in unison like that… gives me the willies when they do that. And it’s not an attempt at an insult, pathetic or otherwise. If I wanted to be insulting, I would be, believe me.

“The transsexuals of the world” are reading my little blog, how encouraging. I’m mad with the power of it all. The transsexuals of the world all dislike my post- except Mr Lees, who was kind enough to let me know he enjoyed the post. Looks like you have a rogue trans there! Better look out for that one, not following the script. Looks like old Paris has a sense of humor!

Gallus, you’ve made my bloody night, I want to thank you SO much. Obviously, as I am so self-obsessed, reading a blog about myself is an absolutely thrilling experience. In fact, aside from my own, fabulous blogs, I can’t think of anything I’ve enjoyed reading more over the past few years. I know we come from quite different political perspectives, but come on, you’ve got to be having a bloody laugh because this is hilarious! I’m going to to print this and frame it ready for when all my rad fem trans friends come round for high tea in a few weeks. We’ll be eating Julie Bindel Lemon Drizzle Cake and this will look great on the wall. I may even take photos and do a blog about it, so hope it gives you as much pleasure as this does me. You’ve absolutely cracked me up! What a scream! xx

What a lot hate, transphobia, misunderstanding and generalizations here.
I’m not homophobic, I’m not a rad fem, nor am I a Mr. Neither am I someone that believes surgical intervention is the only cure. I think it’s fantastic that so many who think they need to change gender do drop out the process – it shows the system is working and that terrible mistakes are not being made, less than 2% regret having the surgery.
It wasn’t so long ago that gay and lesbian people were unsuccessfully treated in all kinds of psychological, physical and chemical ways, ways that were barbarbaric and doomed to fail, if well intentioned.
It was illegal to just be who you are.
In the trans world, after a lot of work, it’s been found that surgery is an effective “treatment” in some cases, they can’t go back and be born another sex, and can’t reprogrammed to accept the bodies they have, it is akin to claiming that gays and lesbians can be “cured”, not only insulting but degrading.
I’m all for equality, and I find it difficult to understand why some in the gay and lesbian community do not feel the same. T folk come in straight, gay, lesbian, bi, q, whatever just like the rest of the population, so why the hate? I’ve certainly not come across homophobic trans people, although I have met people frustrated that organizations like Stonewall refuse to support trangengered people when it’s obvious we could do with the help, we suffer discrimination and fear of being outed too.
Julie B has been insulting towards the T community by saying they should not be allowed to be who they are and that what they feel is not genuine. Haven’t we heard this kind of rhetoric before about gays and lesbians, isn’t it time to move on and make sure everyone is allowed to find peace with themselves (other than suicide, I mean), and be proud of who they are?

@ Saff- Jesus. This is all such 101 shit. I’ll respond to you when I have the time. Maybe someone else will do me the favor and save me the trouble. The only hate, misunderstanding and generalization is coming from you.

” I think it’s fantastic that so many who think they need to change gender do drop out the process – it shows the system is working and that terrible mistakes are not being made, less than 2% regret having the surgery.”
What system? In the US and Canada teens are given hormones via “informed consent” as is SRS. Hell, licensed nurses give un-prescribed injections on YouTube. What “system” are you referring to? And as for regret, at least 20% of post SRS patients express regret. Suicide rates are higher post SRS, as are arrests and psychiatric events.

“It wasn’t so long ago that gay and lesbian people were unsuccessfully treated in all kinds of psychological, physical and chemical ways, ways that were barbarbaric and doomed to fail, if well intentioned.”
For real? Gays and lesbians are still being cured by “barbaric methods”, it’s called transsexualism. Iran performs the second highest rate of SRS surgeries (after Thailand) because it’s used as a cure for homosexuality. And at least 28% of transsexuals in the western world are “gender-nonconforming” homosexuals.

“I’m all for equality, and I find it difficult to understand..”
You’re all for equality for who. Not for those born female. You hate women. You are like the KKK. You believe in “female brains” just like haters like you belive in “negroid brains”. You are fucking ill. What is gender? Gender is hate. Gender is your religion, your “identity”. Your identity is hate.
You’re posting on a feminist blog. Not that you with your male-privilege would bother to check. Feminists (unlike trans who are the opposite of feminist) make a distinction between physical sex (biologic reproductive category) and gender (slave behavior inflicted by violence on those presumed impregnable by those incapable of reproduction). You love gender. You love slavery. You fetishize it. It makes you excited to imagine yourself inhabiting it.

“I’ve certainly not come across homophobic trans people, although I have met people frustrated that organizations like Stonewall refuse to support trangengered people when it’s obvious we could do with the help, we suffer discrimination and fear of being outed too.”
Uhh, gays aren’t fighting for the right to be perceived as straight. Homosexuality is an objectively measurable behavior. Unlike trans, we don’t support being closeted. We don’t demand the government hide our behavior. We don’t insist the public affirm social and governmental fictions. Our “identity” isn’t dependent on exterior affirmation. Trans want to “pass” as the opposite sex because trans believe sex causes distinct behavioral differences. Trans believe females and males have different brains which result in different abilities, proclivities, inclinations, potentials.
Trans demand the right to be perceived as “cis” by the public and by government and statistical medical and scientific agencies.

“Julie B has been insulting towards the T community by saying they should not be allowed to be who they are and that what they feel is not genuine.”
Julie Bindel is respectful and loving towards trans people. She always has been. Trans people hate and attack her, including physically- a trans “woman” tried to slice her face with a lanyard at one of her public speaking functions- yet she is one of the greatest allies and supporters of trans people, who are so full of hate and gender-sickness that they see her as the enemy. Bindel feels all men and women should enjoy every behavior and inclination and embodiment that naturally occurs. Of course as a woman and a feminist she knows that sex exists, and that gender is a fictional set of rules and behaviors designed to enslave women.

Just spamming you for the sake of it now. You made it personal. A debate could have been interesting – don’t shout at people for being wrong, explain to them why they’re wrong. Otherwise you’re just spouting hate cos you ‘just don’t like it’.

I know, not doing what i’m told like a good girl! Yikes! Hey, you started the abuse with the ‘hateful shit’ thing. See, one ‘advantage’ one has as being brought up as a boy, is that you learn very quickly if you’re going to talk shit about someone, be prepared to back it up.

Actually, you can call me m2t if you like, doesn’t bother me; separate from my body dismorphic issues, as far as behaviour goes, i generally consider myself androgyne/genderqueer. So, behaving like a boy (is expected to behave? So what? If its ok when you do it, why isn’t it ok when i do it. BTW, bet you don’t approve this one either, cos debate isn’t as much fun as shouting abuse is it? OK, bored with playing with you now… Have a nice life! Not.

Trans are so full of hate. Can you imagine feminists harassing trans like this on their blogs? Has never happened. Bindel has never sent fucked up hate messages about Trans mothers onto their blogs, I guarantee you that.

[C]ritic of Dr. Bailey’s book, Andrea James, a Los Angeles-based transgender advocate and consultant. Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided. (Dr. Bailey is a divorced father of two.) Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect.

The very hallmark of the male is a sexual threat against a woman. MTFs making these threats online betray their incredible male entitled natures, and thus are never women. Funny how a passionate love of equality isn’t what these guys “transition” into. Rape, calling women sexual names, threatening rape, attacking women… it’s the ultimate MTF–guy thing.

I think it was different in some large cities, Gallus. Here, many/most of the Lesbian I knew didn’t know any gay men. We really had not been welcome in their community — bars, restaurants, resort weekend parties, and even neighborhood. The Castro is an entire gay male neighborhood with all kinds of businesses. Lesbians even walking down the street or going into shops would be glared at and some told to leave.

So when AIDS appeared, the main gay newspaper began regular ads aimed at Lesbians not in the gay community, which asked for money, help, attendant work, and even blood. One ad focused just on blood, saying ours was the cleanest. At the same time, the Shanti Project, which had been for dying Lesbians and gay men, refused Lesbians and became an AIDS project. In the San Franciso Bay Area, guilt and manipulation definitely were used to pressure Lesbians to help. It was upsetting because these were the same men who had made jokes about how dirty our vulvas were (in print! This was in the local newspaper, theoretically for Lesbians as well as gay men, but which was full of porn and prostitution ads for gay men.) Lesbians were also squeezed out of the annual Pride Parade unless we had a lot of money.

So that’s why some of us are bitter about it. Of course it’s entirely different to have had gay male friends who you loved and wanted to protect and help and save. We have very different experiences also because of the size of communities. Now that AIDS is preventable, Lesbians are still more involved in the business of supporting AIDS projects, which bring in millions, than any health project for Lesbians or even women, while Lesbians die with no medical care or support. Or many of us are living chronically ill with no support. A gay man I spoke with last week really agreed about all of this and is outraged on our behalf. He lives in SF, and so seems more of it than I do.

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In the early 1970s, my dad was a singular sort of feminist. As well as working all night in a factory, he had banned my mother from the kitchen for as long as I could remember because, and I quote, ‘Women gets hysterical and you needs to be calm in a kitchen.’ He also adored tough broads: ‘There’s a lady!’ he would yell appreciatively at Mrs Desai when the Grunwick strike came on TV, the Indian women wearing English winter coats over their hard-core saris. ‘Thass a lady too!’ — May Hobbs, the pretty leader of the cleaners’ strike. ‘What a woman!’ he would swoon when the lesbian tennis champ Billie Jean King shrugged off yet another trophy. Only once in a while did his righteousness get on my wick, like the Christmas when he heard there were some striking bakers nearby and he made my mum pack our Christmas dinner (with all the trimmings!) into Tupperware boxes so he could take it down to the starving brothers freezing around the brazier down on the picket line ‘Mu-um!’ I whined, full of tweenage self-pity (if nothing else), ‘They’re ba-akers! I dunno, why can’t they… BAKE something and have that instead?’ My mother didn’t miss a beat, shoving chipolatas into the squashed smorgasbord with real savagery: ‘Because if we don’t do it, your dad’s gonna be miserable all day. Best get it over with.’ It’s easy for me to sentimentalise those days when the trade unions held sway, chiming as they did with the calf country of my communism, but whatever their beery and sandwichy limits, they were far better than what replaced them; the politics of diversity. While working-class left-wing political activism was always about fighting the powerful, treating people how you would wish to be treated and believing that we’re all basically the same, modern, non-working-class left-wing politics is about… other stuff. Class guilt, sexual kinks, personal prejudice and repressed lust for power. The trade union movement gave us brother Bill Morris and Mrs Desai; the diversity movement has given us a rainbow coalition of cranks and charlatans. Which has, in turn, has given us intersectionality. Intersectionality may well sound like some unfortunate bowel complaint resulting in copious use of a colostomy bag, and indeed it does contain a large amount of ordure. Wikipedia defines it as ‘the study of intersections between different disenfranchised groups or groups of minorities; specifically, the study of the interactions of multiple systems of oppression or discrimination’, which seems rather mature and dignified. In reality, it seeks to make a manifesto out of the nastiest bits of Mean Girls, wherein non-white feminists especially are encouraged to bypass the obvious task of tackling the patriarchy’s power in favour of bitching about white women’s perceived privilege in terms of hair texture and body shape. Think of all those episodes of Jerry Springer where two women who look like Victoria’s Secret models — one black, one white — bitch-fight over a man who resembles a Jerusalem artichoke, sitting smugly in the middle, and you have the end result of intersectionality made all too foul flesh. It may have been intended as a way for disabled women of colour to address such allegedly white-ableist-feminist-specific issues as equal pay, but it’s ended up as a screaming, squawking, grievance-hawking shambles. The supreme irony of intersectionality is that it both barracks ‘traditional’ feminists for ignoring the issues of differently abled and differently ethnic women while at the same time telling them they have no right to discuss them because they don’t understand them — a veritable Pushmi-Pullyu of a political movement. Entering the crazy world of intersectionality is quite like being locked in a hall of mirrors with a borderline personality disorder coach party. ‘Stop looking at me funny! Why are you ignoring me? Go away, I hate you! Come back, how dare you reject me!’ It’s politics, Jim, but certainly not as my dear old dad knew it. In-fighting and backbiting have been raised to the level of a very sad Olympic sport — that’ll be the Special Olympics, of course, the real ones being ‘able-ist’. Every thought is an ism and every person an ist in the insania of intersectionality, where it is always winter and never Christmas — sorry, ‘Winterval’. (Mustn’t be Islamophobic.) But sexism, interestingly, isn’t really the hot ticket there; women get picked on — or ‘called out’, to use the approved phrase — more than anyone. Natural-born women, that is. When it happened to one of my dearest friends last year, I became an unwitting participant in this modern danse macabre. One Friday in January 2013, I was showing off on Facebook of an afternoon — as is my wont now my career’s gone up the Swannee — when it was drawn to my attention that my amica of several decades standing, Suzanne Moore, was being ‘monstered’, as modern parlance has it, on Twitter. She’d actually been driven off it for refusing to apologise for something she’d said, subsequently becoming the target for all sorts of vile threats, including having her face ripped off and fed to feral dogs. Always up for a fight, I hurried through cyberspace, only to find my homey the target of a thoroughly monstrous regiment of bellicose transsexuals and their bed-wetting ‘cheerleaders’. Both groups had taken exception to the following line by Suzanne from an essay on female anger: ‘We are angry with ourselves for not being happier, not being loved properly and not having the ideal body shape — that of a Brazilian transsexual.’ Repelled by the filthy threats which were flying fierce and fast at my friend, I began to talk trash on my Facebook page — though even my trash-talk, it must be said, has a vicious elegance that most people’s A-game lacks. I opined that a bunch of gender-benders trying to tell my mate how to write was akin to the Black and White Minstrels advising Usain Bolt on how to run. I stated that it was outrageous that a woman of style and substance should be driven from her chosen mode of time-wasting by a bunch of dicks in chicks’ clothing and their snivelling suck-ups. The usual cool, calm and collected sort of consideration I’m famous for. It was interesting to me that, rather than join Miss Moore in decrying the notion that every broad should aim to look like an oven-ready porn star, the very cross cross-dressing lobby and their grim groupies had picked on the messenger instead — presumably in order to add to their already flourishing sense of grievance. Suzanne is a life-long left-winger and a feminist — why, I wondered, were fellow travellers threatening her in so rabid a manner? But this, I was to learn, was par for the crotchety course. Suzanne’s crime, it transpired, was to be ‘cis-gendered’ as opposed to transgendered (that is, she was born female) and not to have ‘checked her privilege’ — what passes for a battle cry in certain ever-decreasing circles these dog days. It’s hardly ‘No pasarán!’ — rather, it declares an intention that it is better to be nagged to death on one’s knees rather than stand by one’s principles on one’s feet. Consider how lucky you are, born women, before you raise your voice above that of a trans-sister! — that veritable cornucopian horn of plenty which we lucky breed fortunate enough to be born to a sensory smorgasbord of periods, PMT, the menopause, HRT and being bothered ceaselessly for sex by random male strangers since puberty take such flagrant delight in revelling in, shameless hussies that we are. Add to this that Suzanne was, like myself, born into the English working class, and therefore marginally less likely to have beaten the odds than a dancing dog or busker’s cat to have become a public figure, and I was buggered (not being homophobic, there) if I was going to put up with a bunch of middle-class seat-sniffers, educated beyond all instinct and honesty, laying into my girl. But it wasn’t just that. It was an instinctive desire to defend the socialism of my dead father. Because intersectionality is actually the opposite of socialism! Intersectionality believes that there is ‘no such thing as society’ — just various special interests. In my opinion, we only become truly brave, truly above self-interest, when fighting for people different from ourselves. My hero as a kid was Jack Ashley — a deaf MP who became the champion of rape victims. These days, the likes of those who went after Suzanne would probably dismiss him as a self-loathing cis-ableist. Intersectionality, like identity politics before it, is pure narcissism. Though it reminds us ceaselessly to ‘check our privilege’, intersectionality is the silliest privilege of them all, a gang of tools and twats tiptoeing around others’ finer feelings rather than getting stuck in, mucking in, like proper mates — the ultimate privilege, which is to serve each other with collective love and action. The most recently inter-species ruckus happened when the Deirdre Spart impersonator Laurie Penny wrote a passionate defence of the pixie cut in the New Statesman, only to get it in the sleekly shaved neck from women who accused her of not taking the different behaviour of African
hair into consideration. When I asked a supporter of this lunacy whether she thought that every subject of interest to women should have every type of woman weighing in with her written opinion, she answered that yes, she did. Seriously? I don’t think my heart can stand the excitement of a weekly Staggers the size of a telephone directory. I personally can understand black women occasionally getting teed off with their apparently carefree Wash’n’Go white stepsisters. But the most recent and reactionary development within this hissy-fitting hothouse — the insistence of intersectional feminists on the right of transsexuals not to be offended — tells you all you need to know about the essential stupidity of the movement. The idea that a person can chose their gender — in a world where millions of people, especially ‘cis-gendered’ women, are not free to choose who they marry, what they eat or whether or not their genitals are cut off and sewn up with barbed wire when they are still babies — and have their major beautification operations paid for by the National Health Service seems the ultimate privilege, so don’t tell me to check mine. Here’s hoping that the in-fighting in-crowd of intersectionality disappear up their own intersection really soon, so the rest of us can resume creating a tolerant and united socialism.

Julie Burchill is a columnist, author, and self-proclaimed ‘militant feminist’.

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 22 February 2014

(I’ve always had a much stronger visceral reaction to the female transitioners; they’re just so tragic to me with such sadness in their eyes (I just saw one on the street) and I feel for them, while the males are just creepy and gross and to be avoided. )

I found some of the comments so interesting. A few (what sounded like conservative old Spectator reading chaps) saying things like ‘why don’t you stop whining and gain respect like everyone else, through Attaining Prominence in your Career’ (I paraphrase), which made the trannies scream louder (as they don’t have careers) and I think in one comment call them terfs (!), which made the chaps go ‘Ok perhaps you are oppressed but we fail to see why you seem unable construct an argument with a proper thesis and counter argument and instead hurl cryptic insults…’ Culture clash or what! Or maybe not. Maybe just two groups of conservative males sparring…

You point out to them that trans ideology reduces people to their genitals like nothing else.

Feminists ACKNOWLEDGE our genitalia. We have these bits, and we proclaim, the shape of our bits should not dictate anything at all about our brains, our thoughts, our personalities, or our potential. Our genitalia are real, they are inborn, and they should be like our eye color or the length of our calves. Just a fact, nothing else. Feminists reject the idea of some required “matching” of brain to bits as the patriarchal nonsense that it is.

But meanwhile, to the trans lobby, genitalia are SRS BZNS. To trans ideologues, if you have a certain personality or certain interests and tastes, but (OMG@!!!) the “wrong” genitalia, you have to get MAJOR SURGERY to CHANGE IT so that it “matches.”

And they have the nerve to say that it’s feminists who are obsessed with bits? It is only to laugh.

I nearly lost my dinner when I read the paragraph where the dude fantasized about his teacher’s skin. Jamie Gumb and his woman suit sprang to mind as well as every other creepy serial killer story I’ve ever heard. As though a woman’s skin is something to peel off, tan and wear. How can anyone read that paragraph and not hear the klaxon clanging furiously in alarm?

I was going to say that I truly regret reading that Atlantic article, but the more I think about it, the more I’m glad it’s out there. The visceral reaction I felt is going to be shared by some of the magazine’s female readership. Maybe it will be the peak trans/ peak choosy-choice-it’s-all-good feminism moment for a lot of them.

That was viscerally disturbing. As if the article itself wasn’t horrible enough, the accompanying pictures are now burned into my brain. It’s amazing that the guy thought it was funny to make a Buffalo Bill joke.

The comments are just as sickening. Women expressing legitimate concern over objectification are shouted down by libertarian dudes saying “but it’s not hurting anyone.” It’s funny that men are allowed to get away with any amount of deprevity if it “doesn’t hurt anyone, ” but women who speak out about our oppression are terrorists who hate freedom.

Oh and the subject of the article has entered the comments to chastise women for being conservative homophobic Republicans and…..responsible for our own oppression. And then complained that he has trouble finding a girlfriend.

Excellent point Choco. The moment we point out how disgusting, how insulting all this is, men start screaming about how we’re uptight prudes. They act as though any behavior, no matter how strange or offensive is ok as long as it involves the holy trifecta of “not hurting anyone”, consenting adults, and a male orgasm.

Of course such bizarro fetishes frequently cause a great deal of damage– what does it say about women when men reduce us to sexualized, siliconed, painted “dolls” and act like we ought to be flattered? But no, these men want to act like they’re in a vacuum because thinking about how their behavior effects women would harsh their mellow/ruin their orgasm.

And to add to your point Lint, there were commenters there saying it’s much more socially acceptable and “cute”for women to act masculine than for men to be feminine. Oh really? I forgot that there are so many butch women revered in Tv and movies. Do they really think that it’s only transwomen and feminine gay men who risk violence by just going outside?

That comes up so often Choco… men are always pissing and moaning about how women get to “dress like men” and allegedly explore their masculine side. Yeah right. Have you ever seen a woman with unshaved legs and shorts on walk down the street? It’s only acceptable for women to be tom boys as long as we remain fuckable. Short hair? Ok but you better look like Audry Hepburn. No make up? Only tolerable if you look flawless. Baggy guy clothes? You had better have a banging, gym toned body underneath them. Even when it looks like we’re crossing boundaries we’re being regulated and shit on.

The most terrifying thing about this article to me is that the heads of the Sexual Behavior Clinic at the New York State Psychiatric Institute have “never heard” of this activity. We have been talking about this behavior FOR YEARS on this blog. We covered “masking” three years ago. Everyone knows about this shit. But not the experts. And these “authorities” are the ones rubber stamping legal “Gender Identity”, and public funding of surgical pelvic-hole creation for torture-killing murderers, so as to enable the experience of what they imagine as being penetrated “like a woman”.

Seriously? These are the people giving “expert testimony” and they are less informed than 99% of casual internet users? These are the same “experts” pumping “transgender” kids full of “puberty blockers”? “There are senators out there doing this too, you know. Judges, police officers, every walk of life” the article quotes. Every walk of life? BUT FEMALE.

And I’m sorry to leave a comment that essentially adds nothing but validation. I hold back on doing that most of the time, so as not to litter the comment feed with what amounts to “yes!” but I hope it’s ok this time.

My favorite quote is ““I have trouble with girlfriends and I think it helps fill the void of not having a female around,” she said. “I create that kind of entity in myself when I don’t have that companionship.””

Yes, “trouble with girlfriends” which I assume is a euphemism for “I can’t browbeat a woman into accepting my crazy, scary fetish that reduces women into freakish, hyper sexualized cartoons.”

I also like the implication that there is some kind of “void” from “not having a female around” like men are entitled to have us in their environment. We’re supposed to feel sorry for this nut job because he doesn’t have access to women? Boo hoo. Oh he’s not a nutjob, he’s just lacking female companionship. If those troublesome, conservative harpies would just stop being so uptight he wouldn’t have to do this!

Lastly, the idea that he can create a woman out of latex and his own imagination frightening. Are women really so meaningless to him that we don’t need to exist as real people? A pretend woman is good enough? Apparently so because one of the other crazies in the article was going on about how much sexier his latex suit is compared to the aged and therefore unattractive 50 and 60 year olds who are willing to date him. We women see to have no value outside of out attractiveness to men.

I can accept your point of view and I don’t differ from that in many respects, but how would you suggest we could help this person, and those like him, get better? Is there a benefit to just “writing them off”? Perhaps there is, but I can’t help thinking that it is worth going deeper and aiming at preventing this sort of thing. Even better, dealing with the cause.

I hope you really don’t see this as a waste of time Gallus– I love reading your comments. (Pardon the badly written post above btw– don’t know what was up with that)

Vande: as Gallus has already pointed out I don’t have an obligation to help these psychos. That you’re trying to derail me into thinking up ways to fix these assholes speaks volumes about your mind set. I don’t have time to try to rehab “maskers”. I’m more interested in helping WOMEN.

“Are women really so meaningless to him that we don’t need to exist as real people? A pretend woman is good enough?”

Or you could say, what he (and many other men) think women ARE (or ought to be) certainly isn’t REAL people like men, but sexy playthings, like dolls or robots. Sometimes it takes these extremes (like men who wear masks to try and have ultimate control of the robot, or men who think a doll is better than an actual woman) for us to see that this is what many men REALLY think about women — not proper human beings, like children at best needing a man to take control. Back through debates about whether or not women had souls, or were just the cause of original sin, and then the ancient greeks (Aeschylus about 450BC) where in a play based on a common myth, the god Apollo happily proclaims that the father is the only true parent, the mother is just a vessel (which is why it was okay for Orestes to kill his own mother!). We like to think that things have moved on, but as these cases show, men still don’t really consider women as proper human beings……………………..and certainly not their equals!

And the cherry on top BadDyke is that according to Plato, there was a man who got the opportunity to live both as a man and woman by the gods. He concluded that women have a much easier life-especially with regards to sex. It must have been so hard for ancient Greek men to be able to be citizens, walk freely without an escort, get an education, and not be sold into slavery.

Vande, when you write something off, you absorb the loss yourself. Is that really what you think women should be doing, i.e., absorbing the harm these people do to us? How about if they get out of our spaces, instead? How about if they stop stealing our words (woman, girl, lesbian, femme, butch, she, her) instead, and make up their own, self-sufficient vocabulary to describe themselves? How about they make their own lives and their own community instead of appropriating the struggles of every other community out there?

Great questions, cerulean blue. But they’d have to actually *create* to do those things, instead of acting like a parasitic death cult. I thought the idea of gynergy was corny when I first heard it. It’s not. It’s profoundly true.